


a close shave

by fallenidol_453



Series: non-linear [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Camping, Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, M/M, Magic Healing, Not Beta Read, background mention of arson, post crimson flower route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 08:08:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallenidol_453/pseuds/fallenidol_453
Summary: Byleth is hurt following an unexpectedly large skirmish against those who slither in the dark. After Linhardt heals him, they head back to their camp to rest from their ordeals and discuss not only food, but what to do with the hideout they just cleared out.
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/My Unit | Byleth
Series: non-linear [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915867
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	a close shave

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Fire Emblem franchise, any mistakes to canon are mine.
> 
> The blood/gore/injuries is for the first half of the story, the rest is relatively domestic camping stuff. I understand this is a game series where magic (and magic healing) exists, so any mistakes I make in that front is entirely my fault.

The last those who slither in the dark member was finally cut down by Byleth’s sword. The _snap_ of the blade jerked him out of his adrenaline-induced stupor, and he quickly surveyed the room. All around him were bodies, messily but efficiently cut and battered down. Blood and gore streaked the floor and walls of this tiny room, reminding him none too kindly that he was covered in it as well. Gods, he hated fighting in small spaces.

He finally noticed his broken sword and threw it aside. It had been a cheap iron sword, yanked unceremoniously from a corpse when one of his other blades broke earlier. That had been his, what? Third sword? Second sword? He was sure he had used _furniture_ as weapons at one point. It was hard to keep track of weapons in the middle of clearing out what turned out to be a large hideout.

Where was—oh, _fuck_. He and Linhardt had been forced to separate earlier in the battle.

Byleth staggered forward towards the nearest door, his sore muscles crying out in protest as he kicked corpses aside to make a somewhat clear path to walk through. He made it to the door and looked out. More bodies littered the floor in a macabre display; the massacre had started here, and he’d been forced to go room by room in this hidden hellhole trying to take out the members of those who slither in the dark.

No sign of Linhardt.

Panic gave Byleth a burst of energy that wasn’t there before, and he limped towards the closest room in a frenzy. Mages of any class were not _meant_ for close quartered fighting, they were barely armored, how could he have been stupid enough to let them get separated?

“Linhardt!”

His voice echoed eerily.

The room he sought was splintered asunder in a way only magery could accomplish. Byleth vaguely remembered feeling the building shake at one point; that must have taken place here. Whatever spell his husband had done—Cutting Gale, probably an extra strong one—it had been enough to take down the ceiling and crush everyone in the room.

No sign of Linhardt. Byleth’s heart raced, a feeling he was still getting used to and hated, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. He turned around, limping out of the room. The next room didn’t have the ceiling collapse, but some furniture had been knocked over and everyone inside bore unmistakable signs of being hit with another blast of Cutting Gale.

“Lin—”

He took a step back and put his foot wrong, slipping and landing hard on his back with a wet _splat_ onto a pool of blood. Byleth yelled hoarsely at the new pain radiating from his ankle and arm. Over the roar of his racing heart he heard footsteps approaching, and blindly groped around for a weapon. His free and uninjured arm only felt the stiff limbs of the deceased and gore.

This was how he was going to die then. Unarmed and injured, with no way to fight back.

Unless—

Byleth raised his hands despite the pain in his arm and tried to remember his lectures on Reason magic with Hanneman. His magic wasn’t very strong, but this might be enough to make his opponent step back and give him time to grab a weapon. Fire was the simplest spell, wasn’t it?

“Stay… back…”

The flames flickered in his hands but fizzled out of existence a heartbeat later. He gasped as the last reserves of his energy burned out, and his arms dropped to his sides like they were made of lead. Exhaustion tugged at him like an ugly, discordant siren song and he tried to ignore it, but his body had no fight in it left.

Just as his unknown opponent came upon him, he fell unconscious.

-

Something sour being poured into his mouth jerked him awake. Byleth tried to move, but a firm hand on his shoulder and the threat of choking made him hold still. He managed to crack his eyes open as he swallowed the offending potion down and saw Linhardt kneeling over him.

“You’re finally awake.”

The sheer naked relief in Linhardt’s voice was enough to make Byleth smile weakly until his mind caught up with the rest of his body. He still _hurt_ , and anticipated the convulsing effects of a healing potion, but didn’t experience it.

“What did you—”

“Antitoxin. Do you want a repeat of the first time I tried to heal you without purging your body of poison?” Linhardt asked.

“No,” Byleth replied weakly. That alone was enough to make a shudder run down his pain-wracked body. “I don’t think I—poisoned…”

He blinked and realized he was outside. A drizzle of rain was falling, dampening his gore-streaked face. His arm and ankle curiously didn’t hurt as much as they should have. Linhardt must’ve used a Heal spell on him before dragging his body out of the hideout. His armor was gone too—well, the upper portion of it, at least. That lay in a blood-soaked pile in his peripheral vision.

“I still hurt,” he blurted out. “Could you heal—”

“I’ll probably pass out if I attempt anything stronger than a Heal spell,” Linhardt interrupted. He grasped for something outside of Byleth’s vision and pulled out a round bottle. “I’m going to prop your head up. Open your mouth.”

Byleth let him and obeyed. The angle was awkward, but he managed to swallow the thick, syrupy sourness of a concoction without much of a fuss. Linhardt laid him back down.

“Hurry, bite down on this.”

Byleth felt a wide strip of leather being pushed between his teeth and over his tongue and bit down onto it. A burning warmth assailed his senses moments later, and he clenched his teeth as it spread throughout his body like a wildfire. He forced himself to breathe through his nose as the magical liquid ran its course. Different parts of his body burned inside as they were healed internally, the unwelcome sensation of flesh knitting back together making him shake like he had the chills. Adrenaline usually made drinking these healing potions more bearable; being high on it meant you usually didn’t feel the burning warmth or the spasming. He hated this, hated every feeling of it, but if this meant Linhardt had to expend less energy Healing him, the better. If they were ambushed right this second, neither of them was in much shape to put up more than a token fight.

The spasms finally slowed down and eventually dissipated entirely. He no longer hurt, but his body was begging for a rest. What little energy he had upon waking had been sapped by the concoction’s magic working to heal him.

Linhardt’s voice penetrated through the fog of exhaustion, and Byleth clung to that like an anchor.

“Done?”

Byleth gave a curt nod and worked his jaw open so Linhardt could take out the leather. He inhaled deeply and slowly, trying to not fall asleep. He watched Linhardt stand up, and he finally got a good look at him. Linhardt’s hands were covered in blood, and the hems of his robes were spattered with it too. Part of his sleeve was singed. His face was pale but determined, and Byleth imagined he had deep shadows under his eyes from expending so much energy fighting and healing. It was hard to tell; Linhardt was a veritable giant from his position on the ground on his back.

“Hold still.”

Byleth was so tired he had no other choice but to follow. Linhardt’s hands made the sign of the Heal spell, and a much gentler warmth overtook him. This made him feel like he’d been laying out in the sun, the heat seeping into his skin and healing any superficial damage done to the external areas of his body with only the mildest of discomfort.

When Linhardt was done, Byleth expected him to fall to his knees with exhaustion, or worse, swoon. But he did not. He reached out and clasped Byleth’s hand, tugging him upward.

“Come on—get up—”

It took some maneuvering, but Byleth managed to get to his feet and collect his armor. His vision swam, and he leaned against Linhardt for support.

“We should—check—the bodies—”

“No. We’re going back to our tent and we’re going to rest,” Linhardt interrupted. “I—I’ll deal with the bodies. You need to sleep.”

Byleth barely managed a nod. He could barely process what was said.

“Okay.”

His head lolled forward, but a pinch from Linhardt kept him awake.

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” he ordered. “I’m _not_ dragging you back to camp like I did out of the hideout.”

“I’ll try not to.”

The rain thankfully remained in a drizzle as they slowly slogged their way back to their campsite. Once they were within its perimeter, Byleth unceremoniously dropped his armor in the nearest spot and allowed Linhardt to undo the clasps holding the tent flaps shut.

The last thing Byleth remembered was Linhardt helping him inside.

-

He was in his bedroll. That was a relief.

He was also starving. Hungry enough to eat both his and Linhardt’s horses, and maybe their mule too, regardless of how they were cooked.

Byleth shrugged the blankets off and looked around to get his bearings. Linhardt had left one of the tent flaps pinned open, and the midday sun poured inside. He could smell something cooking outside, which was enough to make him get to his feet and walk quickly to the opened entrance. He spotted his husband sitting by the small firepit, trying his best to read and stir a pot of food at the same time.

“How long was I out?” Byleth asked.

“All night and this morning,” Linhardt replied. He set his book aside and bent down to retrieve something at his feet. “Here. The stew’s not done yet, but I know you’re hungry. You should go bathe as well.”

Byleth barely caught what was thrown at him: a warmed-up pocket pie from one of the inns they’d stayed at recently. He wolfed it down in three bites and went to sit down across from Linhardt, taking the spoon from him.

“What kind of stew is this?” Byleth asked curiously.

He lifted the spoon out of the pot and held it up to his face. The stew was a muddy cream color with a porridge-like consistency, with meat and a shriveled chunk of beans and some other mystery foods caked to it. Well… he’d eat it without complaints. Mercenary life had taught him to eat anything that’d been put in front of him, regardless of how it tasted—and it’d hardened his stomach enough that hardly anything would make him sick.

“You know those trail bars we got last moon? The innkeeper said that with enough water, they could be made into a stew,” Linhardt explained. He watched Byleth put the spoon back into the pot and briskly stir it. “Although… I’m not sure how it’d taste. Or even if it’s supposed to _look_ like this.”

Byleth shrugged. “It looks filling, at least. How much water did you add?”

“Maybe halfway up the pot?”

Byleth bit his lower lip and scrutinized the stew. He gave the pot a final stir, watching as the spoon slowly dragged through the stew like it was made of mud.

“I’ll go take that bath… and bring back some more water. I think we’ll have an easier time eating it then.”

-

Adding more water had done the trick with thinning the stew and making it more like a soup, though it made it a only little more palpable. What they’d thought were beans turned out to be dried fruit and nuts. Linhardt could barely hide his disgust at the taste, much to Byleth’s amusement.

As they cleaned up the remnants of their meal, a curious plume of smoke in the distance kept rousing Byleth’s interest. He also noticed it smelled—odd. It wasn’t the smell woodsmoke from a natural fire gave off. But he didn’t comment on it until later, after he and Linhardt had finished several menial but necessary chores and retired inside their tent for the night.

“Did you end up checking the hideout?” he asked, in the middle of cleaning his armor.

Linhardt looked up from whatever he’d been writing down – shopping list or inventory check, Byleth didn’t know – and his writing slowed to a stop.

“I only did a rudimentary sweep of what I could… reach,” he replied evenly. Nonetheless, his face paled. “There really wasn’t a lot of things to check since we both destroyed a lot of rooms. And—bodies. There were a lot of them. I think everyone was dead; I didn’t hear or see anything shuffling around in the places I looked.”

Byleth sucked in a breath. “I shouldn’t have made you gone back in there. I’m sorry—”

“I insisted on it,” Linhardt interrupted. “You were already exhausted from the battle. If any of them had faked being dead and you checked them for signs of life after I healed you, they would’ve killed you easily.”

Well—it was a little hard to argue with that logic. And Edelgard would have been disappointed if he’d gotten himself killed. Byleth reluctantly nodded in understanding and set his armor aside. He could finish in the morning; he had gotten the worst of the blood and gore off tonight and could check for any damages then.

“What was that plume of smoke I saw earlier?” he asked instead.

Linhardt shrugged nonchalantly. “Oh, that? I closed all the doors and cast a Fire spell inside one of the shattered windows. It was… easier for me.”

Byleth’s mouth opened as if to reply, but he shut it instead. That was one way to make sure everyone was dead, and it didn’t involve getting face to face with either a corpse or a half-dead opponent hiding among their dead comrades looking for a final kill.

And fire. That triggered something in his memory.

“In the hideout… was that you I saw? Did I try to set you on fire?”

“Yes. I’m glad you screamed, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to find you at all,” Linhardt replied. Then he added with a touch of thinly veiled mirth, “though your Fire spell was so weak it wouldn’t have set a twig on fire, much less my robes.”

“I was… desperate…” Byleth replied sheepishly. Though he _was_ relieved that it was Linhardt approaching him and not another slither member. “I barely remember anything from Hanneman’s seminars anyway.”

“Despite my respect for Hanneman as a Crest scholar, I preferred you when it came to teaching Reason magic. You made everything make more sense,” Linhardt stated. Byleth blushed. “Could you double check this list for me? I think I wrote down everything we need at the next town or city we stop at, but a second pair of eyes might help.”

Linhardt handed over a rolled-up scroll and Byleth felt his heart sink. He knew they needed supplies, but not _this_ much. He reluctantly took it, his fingers brushing Linhardt’s in a fleeting touch, and unrolled it. The end hit the ground between his crossed legs and it still curled into itself.

“Love… how long have you been working on this?”

“Since we left the last decently populated town, I think?”

That had been three weeks ago; all their other stops had been sparsely populated villages that didn’t have much in the way of supplies. Byleth suppressed a sigh as Linhardt wordlessly passed him a pencil.

This was going to be a long night.

**Author's Note:**

> Byleth's iron stomach and willingness to eat even the crappiest food might crop up again in a future fic. It's a headcanon that won't leave me alone.
> 
> The trail bars that can be made into a soup/stew is a reference to the Elven journey food from The Obsidian Mountain trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory... though I actually want to try the ones described in the trilogy; I wouldn't try the one I described in my story. 😂
> 
> The pocket pies are basically hand pies, but with more savory fillings like meat and cheese. I'm not sure if you're able to sufficiently heat them up by the fire even if they were fully cooked beforehand, so I'm going to claim creative license on that one!
> 
> I can be reached on Tumblr if any of you want to talk: fallenidol-453


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